Why did Pete Seeger, who has died aged 94, matter? Because for over 75 years he stood true to his original vision, he never wavered. Even when his beliefs had a huge impact on his life and career: he never sold out. He wasn’t just a folk singer, or an activist: he was both.

Pete believed that music could make a difference. Not change the world, he never claimed that – he once said that if music could change the world he’d only be making music – but he believed that while music didn’t have agency, it did have the power to make a difference.

Shaped by that 30s leftwing mentality of the New Deal, Pete saw songs as political acts – for him these were people’s songs – ways for the working class to express themselves. It doesn’t matter that this was later superseded by rock and roll and changed beyond recognition – Seeger was there at the beginning and he never stopped.

When you shook his hand you knew you were shaking hands with someone who had crossed America with Woody Guthrie, who had marched with Martin Luther King and who had stared down McCarthyism – he embodied those great struggles. Other artists, like Bruce Springsteen, have recognised that and have seen Seeger as a touchstone, as someone who showed that songs were more than just making records and doing gigs. By choosing his repertoire carefully, Seeger brought the work of artists who had never achieved great success in their lifetimes to a mainstream audience. In the 1950s he put songs by Leadbelly and Woody Guthrie into the charts and royalties into the hands of their families.

He was already old the first time I met him – we were at a Canadian folk festival, where – as well as doing my own spot – I was invited to take part in a workshop where various artists played songs together. I agreed to take part in a Woody Guthrie workshop and when I turned up I saw that I was set to play with Ramblin’ Jack Elliott – Woody’s right-hand man – Arlo Guthrie and Seeger. I thought: I’m completely busted here. I busked it and at the end Seeger stood up and in his reedy voice he started to sing This Land is Your Land. Guthrie and Elliot did a verse, but when it came to my turn I had to say sorry folks – that land was not my land – we just don’t learn this song in England. Seeger was so supportive and understanding.

Another time, when I was with Seeger and Arlo Guthrie again, this time to see Woody Guthrie inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Seeger – who must have been in his 70s – disappeared. When I turned around he was lying on his back, elbows under his hips, cycling his legs in the air. He was just something else.

Seeger was criticised as a Stalin apologist, but he was honest about it and regretted his own naiveté. Like many at that time, he saw that the idealism that seemed to manifest itself in the USSR had been totally undermined by totalitarianism. He wasn’t afraid to admit he had been wrong, and – despite the insults people threw at him – he was a patriot. He believed in America and liberty – but not just in the liberty to make money, his idea of freedom was broader than that.

He was also criticised for turning against his protege Bob Dylan, but I think that was misunderstood. Yes, he did try to get Dylan to turn down his amplifier at Newport in 65. But the thing that angered Seeger was not the fact that Dylan had gone electric – he’d applauded Muddy Waters electric set earlier that day – he was angry because he couldn’t hear the lyrics. The words, the context, was everything. Seeger, who had faced a spell in prison because of the words he sang, had more reason to be angry than most.

Is anyone carrying the light, continuing the tradition? Arguably Springsteen, or artists like Tom Morello who does solo shows wearing caps with the IWW [Industrial Workers of the World] logo and playing only political songs. But it is hard to find someone who has been around for so long, fought so many causes and seen so many things. I will miss him. I will miss him because every time I shook his hand, I knew I was shaking hands with history.

Music therapy can help teenagers and young people cope better when faced with treatment for cancer, a study in Cancer journal suggests.

American researchers followed the experiences of a group of patients aged 11-24 as they produced a music video over three weeks.

They found the patients gained resilience and improved relationships with family and friends.

All the patients were undergoing high-risk stem-cell transplant treatments.

To produce their music videos, the young patients were asked to write song lyrics, record sounds and collect video images to create their story.

They were guided by a qualified music therapist who helped the patients identify what was important to them and how to communicate their ideas.

When completed, the videos were shared with family and friends through “premieres”.

Positive effect

After the sessions, the researchers found that the group that made music videos reported feeling more resilient and better able to cope with their treatment than another group not offered music therapy.

“Start Quote

Adolescents and young people who are resilient have the ability to rise above their illness”

End QuoteDr Joan HaaseIndiana University

Also, 100 days after treatment, the same group said they felt communication within their families was better and they were more connected with friends.

These are among several protective factors identified by researchers that they say help teenagers and young adults to cope in the face of cancer treatments.

Lead study author Dr Joan Haase, of Indiana University School of Nursing, said: “These protective factors influence the ways adolescents and young adults cope, gain hope and find meaning in the midst of their cancer journey.

“Adolescents and young people who are resilient have the ability to rise above their illness, gain a sense of mastery and confidence in how they have dealt with their cancer, and demonstrate a desire to reach out and help others.”

When researchers interviewed the patients’ parents, they found that the videos also gave them useful insights into their children’s cancer experiences.

‘Feel connected’

Sheri Robb, a music therapist who worked on the study, explained why music was particularly good at encouraging young people to engage.

She said: “When everything else is so uncertain, songs that are familiar to them are meaningful and make them feel connected.”

Previous studies looking at the effects of music therapy on children with cancer found that it could help reduce fear and distress while improving family relationships.

A spokesperson for Teenage Cancer Trust said getting children with cancer to co-operate and communicate was most important.

“Every day in UK, around seven young people aged between 13 and 24 are diagnosed with cancer. We know that being treated alongside others their own age makes a huge difference to their whole experience, especially if it’s in an environment that allows young people with cancer to support each other.”

Pete Seeger was a good man. There aren’t many musicians you can say that about without seeming simplistic. Music is often progressed by flawed, volatile, glamorous egotists, and thank God for them. But Seeger carved out his place in history with a quieter, rarer set of qualities: nobility, generosity, humility and, when things got rough, breathtaking courage. Perhaps uniquely, he became one of the most important singers in America without ever being a star, because he believed in the song rather than the singer.

Seeger was born into privilege but not convention. His father Charles, an Ivy League professor and composer, was a pacifist and founding member of the leftwing Composers’ Collective, and he came to embrace the radical potential of folk music. Pete was an intense, idealistic Harvard dropout when, in 1940, the folklorist Alan Lomax introduced him to Woody Guthrie. Said Lomax: “You can date the renaissance of American folk song from that night.”

This impassioned trio brought folk music to the cities and the airwaves. Lomax was the song collector and facilitator, Guthrie the charismatic Dust Bowl poet, and Seeger the man who got America singing. He didn’t have a remarkable voice but it was clear and strong and it never got in the way of the material, which was the point. A great believer in the power of communal singing, he saw himself as just a catalyst: a means to an end. He crafted songs – both his own compositions (If I Had a Hammer, Where Have All the Flowers Gone?) and existing ones that he adapted – so that anyone could sing them. Describing We Shall Overcome, which he adapted and popularised, he said: “It’s the genius of simplicity. Any damn fool can get complicated.”

Even if he had wanted to be a star, America’s politics were against him. His first group, the Almanac Singers, collapsed during the second world war when their previous role as entertainers at Communist meetings was exposed. Returning to America after serving in the Pacific, Seeger saw two cherished projects fail: his organisation People’s Songs, an organisation to “get America singing”, and the presidential campaign of the Progressive Party’s Henry Wallace. He was hounded, sometimes violently, by the right. His new band, the Weavers, briefly became sensations, but the Red Scare ripped them apart in 1952. And there was worse to come.

Summoned to appear before the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1955, Seeger refused to wriggle out of trouble by taking the Fifth and made himself an “unfriendly” witness. While awaiting trial for contempt of Congress, and likely imprisonment, he threw himself into the civil rights movement. It was Seeger who introduced Martin Luther King to We Shall Overcome and advised civil rights activist to form their own group, the Freedom Singers. “Songs have accompanied every liberation movement in history,” he wrote. “These songs will reaffirm your faith in the future of mankind.”

Seeger was also the forefather of the folk revival. In 1962, the same week his legal troubles were finally over, Peter, Paul and Mary took Where Have All the Flowers Gone? into the Top 40. But the revival ran away from him, thanks to Bob Dylan. The oft-told anecdote about him trying to take an axe to the power cables during Dylan’s electric set at Newport in 1965 isn’t true (it was a figure of speech) but he was certainly let down that Dylan would rather be a mercurial rock star than the darling of the folk-loving left. In that respect, he ended up on the wrong side of history but, having worked tirelessly and risked jail in the service of an ideal, he was justified in feeling disappointed. He soon got over it.

As a songwriter, Seeger was never mainstream again, not least because his protest songs were snubbed by broadcasters. With 60s anti-war songs such as Waist Deep in the Big Muddy and Bring Them Home, he was largely preaching to the choir. But he retained his power to popularise other people’s songs. At a New York hootenanny in 1946, he was the first to make Guthrie’s This Land Is Your Land feel like a new American classic and 23 years later he led half a million anti-war protesters in a chorus of John Lennon’s Give Peace a Chance, which, he said, “united the crowd as no speech or song had been able to all afternoon”. In 1974, he was the first to record Estadio Chile, the last song Victor Jara wrote before his murder by General Pinochet’s thugs.

Throughout his 94 years, Seeger’s principles never wavered, his optimism never faltered. His biographers couldn’t find anyone with a bad word to say about him. He lived with his wife Toshi for 70 years, until her death last summer. He apologised without reservation for his naivete about Stalin, although he still considered himself a communist. He remained a committed activist and supporter of numerous causes. He lent a hand to countless musicians in many countries. Even in old age, he kept singing, notably at President Obama’s inauguration and Occupy Wall Street. His voice may have grown shaky but it carried with it the history of the American left since the New Deal. He would have considered it neglectfully selfish to retire.

Music therapy can help teenagers and young people cope better when faced with treatment for cancer, a study in Cancer journal suggests.

American researchers followed the experiences of a group of patients aged 11-24 as they produced a music video over three weeks.

They found the patients gained resilience and improved relationships with family and friends.

All the patients were undergoing high-risk stem-cell transplant treatments.

To produce their music videos, the young patients were asked to write song lyrics, record sounds and collect video images to create their story.

They were guided by a qualified music therapist who helped the patients identify what was important to them and how to communicate their ideas.

When completed, the videos were shared with family and friends through “premieres”.

Positive effect

After the sessions, the researchers found that the group that made music videos reported feeling more resilient and better able to cope with their treatment than another group not offered music therapy.

“Start Quote

Adolescents and young people who are resilient have the ability to rise above their illness”

End QuoteDr Joan HaaseIndiana University

Also, 100 days after treatment, the same group said they felt communication within their families was better and they were more connected with friends.

These are among several protective factors identified by researchers that they say help teenagers and young adults to cope in the face of cancer treatments.

Lead study author Dr Joan Haase, of Indiana University School of Nursing, said: “These protective factors influence the ways adolescents and young adults cope, gain hope and find meaning in the midst of their cancer journey.

“Adolescents and young people who are resilient have the ability to rise above their illness, gain a sense of mastery and confidence in how they have dealt with their cancer, and demonstrate a desire to reach out and help others.”

When researchers interviewed the patients’ parents, they found that the videos also gave them useful insights into their children’s cancer experiences.

‘Feel connected’

Sheri Robb, a music therapist who worked on the study, explained why music was particularly good at encouraging young people to engage.

She said: “When everything else is so uncertain, songs that are familiar to them are meaningful and make them feel connected.”

Previous studies looking at the effects of music therapy on children with cancer found that it could help reduce fear and distress while improving family relationships.

A spokesperson for Teenage Cancer Trust said getting children with cancer to co-operate and communicate was most important.

“Every day in UK, around seven young people aged between 13 and 24 are diagnosed with cancer. We know that being treated alongside others their own age makes a huge difference to their whole experience, especially if it’s in an environment that allows young people with cancer to support each other.”

A popular Twitter account run by two teenagers publishes historical photos of everything from mall rats to John Lennon sniffing Coke. The feed is delighting a million people but also raises familiar questions of how, in an age of ubiquitous images, to define artistic ownership and attribution: a solution may lie in a fresh approach to calculating copyright.

In case you’re unfamiliar, the Twitter account is called @HistoryInPics, and was the subject of a though-provoking article last week by Alex Madrigal. He explained how a 17-year-old from Australia and a 19-year-old from Hawaii attracted a swarm of followers to the account, including celebrities like Kim Kardashian and Jack Dorsey, in just six months with photos such as Marilyn Monroe’s military ID:

And this old Russian couple who have reportedly been married for 65 years:

The photos in the Twitter stream are a clever summary of culture and history but that’s not all they are. Some of them are clearly covered by copyright and, as Madrigal notes, @HistoryInPics doesn’t seem too concerned about ownership, or even attribution for that matter.

“The majority of the images are public domain haha,”one of the teens told Madrigal. Haha, indeed; except for the fact that most of the pictures on @HistoryInPics are clearly not in the public domain. This, in turn, raises the question of what — if anything — should be done about outfits like @HistoryInPics, and the many others like it that help themselves to images first and worry about copyright later.

The question matters because @HistoryInPics’ loosey-goosey outlook is not just a philosophy, but an established business model. Mainstream sites like YouTube, Pinterest and BuzzFeed all got early traction in part because of a cavalier approach to copyright. And, in the case of the two teens behind the Twitter stream, this isn’t their first rodeo — as Madrigal explains, they’re already experienced at developing viral content channels and selling them of for money. No doubt they’ll do the same with @HistoryInPics.

Time for a new approach to copyright

Stories like the one about @HistoryInPics typically drive photographers and copyright hardliners berserk, and not without reason. Most people agree that protecting artists’ rights is justified, and that more should be done to stop the wholesale expropriation of others’ images.

Unfortunately, the usual cure proposed by critics of BuzzFeed and other new media sites is worse than the disease: full-enforcement of America’s draconian copyright laws, which provide penalties of up to $150,000 per work and grant absurd terms of protection that last well over a century. If such measures were enforced everywhere all the time, it’s doubtful we would have YouTube or Pinterest or Instagram or many of the other digital services that make the internet such a rich cultural forum.

In the real world, to the degree that the copyright laws are enforced, it’s often in horribly unfair ways: sample trolls who file ludicrous lawsuits against hip-hop artists or copyright trolls who shake down small bloggers that don’t have the money or sophistication to fight back (there’s also evidence that Getty Images has a hand in such trolling). Such practices hurt the overall credibility of copyright while also doing little to support photographers and other artists.

As I’ve argued in the past, copyright law is broken and the debate over how to fix it is dominated by extremists: those who support Hollywood hardliners on one hand, and those who defend the likes of Kim Dotcom on the other. The way forward lies somewhere in the middle and, if lawmakers can find it, they could create a system that provides more money and respect for creators while also ensuring that the next generation of BuzzFeeds or YouTubes can flourish.

The contours of such a system are open to debate, but the best place to start is with shorter copyright terms. In early America, creators were able to protect their works for a 14 year term that could be renewed one time. Such a limit sounds about right for today when art is created, distributed and forgotten faster than ever before. Shorter terms might also make it easier for artists to persuade internet users to pay them in the first place.

This article was updated at 10:10am ET with the following corrections: a photo shows John Lennon “sniffing Coke” not snorting cocaine, and that a c0-founder of @historyinpics is 17 not 15.

Beats Music, the streaming service
from rapper Dr. Dre and record producer Jimmy Iovine, delayed
the start of a family plan with AT&T Inc. (T) by five days, citing
overwhelming demand for the service.

The $15-a-month family plan will begin on Jan. 31, the
companies said today in an e-mail. The AT&T introduction was
scheduled to start yesterday.

The delay slows a marketing effort that Beats Music is
counting on to attract fans and challenge Spotify Ltd., the
world’s biggest subscription music-streaming company with 6
million paying customers and 24 million total listeners. Beats
Music today is the top free music application on Apple Inc.’s
AppStore, outranking apps for Pandora Media Inc. and Spotify.

AT&T is offering customers of its family plan a 90-day free
trial before charges appear on their monthly bills. People who
sign up for the $10 individual plan get 30 days free. Target is
providing 30-day free trials to electronics shoppers at its
retail stores.

“Due to overwhelming initial demand for the Beats Music
app, we’re now planning to launch our exclusive Beats family
offer in our retail stores and online on Jan. 31,” AT&T said in
an e-mail.

Beats Music is also running a commercial during the Feb. 2
Super Bowl, and Ellen DeGeneres will demonstrate the service on
her daytime talk show.

Streaming Arrives

AT&T, based in Dallas, gained 0.3 percent to $33.51 at the
close in New York. The stock rose 4.3 percent last year.

Purchases of digital music, a format dominated by Apple
Inc.’s iTunes that propped up industry sales for a decade,
declined for the first time in 2013, according to researcher
Nielsen SoundScan. Meanwhile, use of streaming services
increased 32 percent last year.

Music-streaming services need 5 million to 10 million
paying customers to be profitable after paying licensing fees to
rights holders, according to Roger Entner, an analyst with Recon
Analytics in Boston.

The worldwide market is projected to reach 191 million
paying subscribers by 2019, according to ABI Research, an
increase from the estimated 29 million last year.

Music therapy can help teenagers and young people cope better when faced with treatment for cancer, a study in Cancer journal suggests.

American researchers followed the experiences of a group of patients aged 11-24 as they produced a music video over three weeks.

They found the patients gained resilience and improved relationships with family and friends.

All the patients were undergoing high-risk stem-cell transplant treatments.

To produce their music videos, the young patients were asked to write song lyrics, record sounds and collect video images to create their story.

They were guided by a qualified music therapist who helped the patients identify what was important to them and how to communicate their ideas.

When completed, the videos were shared with family and friends through “premieres”.

Positive effect

After the sessions, the researchers found that the group that made music videos reported feeling more resilient and better able to cope with their treatment than another group not offered music therapy.

“Start Quote

Adolescents and young people who are resilient have the ability to rise above their illness”

End QuoteDr Joan HaaseIndiana University

Also, 100 days after treatment, the same group said they felt communication within their families was better and they were more connected with friends.

These are among several protective factors identified by researchers that they say help teenagers and young adults to cope in the face of cancer treatments.

Lead study author Dr Joan Haase, of Indiana University School of Nursing, said: “These protective factors influence the ways adolescents and young adults cope, gain hope and find meaning in the midst of their cancer journey.

“Adolescents and young people who are resilient have the ability to rise above their illness, gain a sense of mastery and confidence in how they have dealt with their cancer, and demonstrate a desire to reach out and help others.”

When researchers interviewed the patients’ parents, they found that the videos also gave them useful insights into their children’s cancer experiences.

‘Feel connected’

Sheri Robb, a music therapist who worked on the study, explained why music was particularly good at encouraging young people to engage.

She said: “When everything else is so uncertain, songs that are familiar to them are meaningful and make them feel connected.”

Previous studies looking at the effects of music therapy on children with cancer found that it could help reduce fear and distress while improving family relationships.

A spokesperson for Teenage Cancer Trust said getting children with cancer to co-operate and communicate was most important.

“Every day in UK, around seven young people aged between 13 and 24 are diagnosed with cancer. We know that being treated alongside others their own age makes a huge difference to their whole experience, especially if it’s in an environment that allows young people with cancer to support each other.”

Beats Music, the streaming service
from rapper Dr. Dre and record producer Jimmy Iovine, delayed
the start of a family plan with AT&T Inc. (T) by five days, citing
overwhelming demand for the service.

The $15-a-month family plan will begin on Jan. 31, the
companies said today in an e-mail. The AT&T introduction was
scheduled to start yesterday.

The delay slows a marketing effort that Beats Music is
counting on to attract fans and challenge Spotify Ltd., the
world’s biggest subscription music-streaming company with 6
million paying customers and 24 million total listeners. Beats
Music today is the top free music application on Apple Inc.’s
AppStore, outranking apps for Pandora Media Inc. and Spotify.

AT&T is offering customers of its family plan a 90-day free
trial before charges appear on their monthly bills. People who
sign up for the $10 individual plan get 30 days free. Target is
providing 30-day free trials to electronics shoppers at its
retail stores.

“Due to overwhelming initial demand for the Beats Music
app, we’re now planning to launch our exclusive Beats family
offer in our retail stores and online on Jan. 31,” AT&T said in
an e-mail.

Beats Music is also running a commercial during the Feb. 2
Super Bowl, and Ellen DeGeneres will demonstrate the service on
her daytime talk show.

Streaming Arrives

AT&T, based in Dallas, gained 0.3 percent to $33.51 at the
close in New York. The stock rose 4.3 percent last year.

Purchases of digital music, a format dominated by Apple
Inc.’s iTunes that propped up industry sales for a decade,
declined for the first time in 2013, according to researcher
Nielsen SoundScan. Meanwhile, use of streaming services
increased 32 percent last year.

Music-streaming services need 5 million to 10 million
paying customers to be profitable after paying licensing fees to
rights holders, according to Roger Entner, an analyst with Recon
Analytics in Boston.

The worldwide market is projected to reach 191 million
paying subscribers by 2019, according to ABI Research, an
increase from the estimated 29 million last year.